October 20, 2008 For Immediate Release Secretary of State Website Temporarily Taken Down for Security Purposes

Ohio State Highway Patrol will assist with investigation

Columbus, Ohio - Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner announced on Monday afternoon that the state website has been set in a static mode with limited functionality as a precaution. The Ohio State Highway Patrol will assist with an investigation of one or more security breaches detected by the Secretary of State.

"Due to security concerns experienced by the Secretary of State's website, full functionality of the website has been suspended to protect the integrity of state records and data. Full functionality will be restored when we are assured that all data has been protected to acceptable levels of security," said Secretary of State Brunner.

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"Our focus is and has always been to protect the vote of every eligible Ohio voter from any kind of fraud, be it voter registration fraud, illegal voting or vote suppression. This action has been taken to detect and prosecute any illegal breach of our voting infrastructure to maintain voter confidence," said Secretary Brunner.

Unfortunately, this is not the first instance of direct assault on the operations of the Secretary of State's office. In recent weeks, phone lines and e-mail channels have been barraged, even in the business filings section of the office, with menacing messages and even threats of harm or death. Last week, a suspicious package covered with threatening messages and containing an unidentified powder was mailed to the Secretary of State's office via the previous location of the Client Services Center. These incidents are also under investigation.

The Secretary of State's office will continue to work in the best interest of Ohio voters and the boards of elections as we continue our preparation for a successful election.

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of (more...)